


things to hold

by YourPalYourBuddy



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: F/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Pining, Snapshots, au where lardo plays hockey and the boys are art majors, canon typical drinking, except it's wine! bc #artsy, lardo's pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-27
Updated: 2019-08-27
Packaged: 2020-09-27 22:49:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20415583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YourPalYourBuddy/pseuds/YourPalYourBuddy
Summary: “Yeah,” Shitty says with a grin. He pushes his hair off his face; there’s a streak of yellow caught in the hair by his ears. “Look alright?”“You know I don’t know anything about art,” Lardo says awkwardly.Shitty shrugs, smiling. “And I don’t know anything about hockey, but you still ask me how you played after games.” He pokes her stomach in the exact spot he knows makes her squeak.Sometimes, when he does this — both of them chilling in his room, paintings everywhere, fairy lights strung from every wall  and his fingers teasing her stomach - well. It’s playful, it always is, but sometimes when he does this — when he’s got yellow paint splashed all over, sometimes she wants to know what would happen if she asked him to splash it all over her, too.______________________AU in which Lardo plays hockey and the boys are art majors. Shitty x Lardo, from Lardo's POV :)





	things to hold

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pertainstothesea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pertainstothesea/gifts).

> From a [shitty-check-please-aus prompt ](https://ivecarvedawoodenheart.tumblr.com/post/187289064789/lardo-plays-hockey-the-boys-are-all-art-majors)

________________________

“Lards, what d’you think?” Shitty asks, leaning across his bed to tilt a canvas toward her. 

Lardo blinks. It’s got a mess of — colors? Brushstrokes? It sorta looks like face-off circles. Maybe, if you squint at it. The colors look like Faber in the morning light. Shitty’s gone with her enough times before early skate so she can practice shooting with company, so it’s probably a safe bet.

She says, careful, “Faber?”

“Yeah,” Shitty says with a grin. He pushes his hair off his face; there’s a streak of yellow caught in the hair by his ears. “Look alright?”

“You know I don’t know anything about art,” Lardo says awkwardly. 

Shitty shrugs, smiling. “And I don’t know anything about hockey, but you still ask me how you played after games.” He pokes her stomach in the exact spot he knows makes her squeak. 

Sometimes, when he does this — both of them chilling in his room, paintings everywhere, fairy lights strung from every wall and his fingers teasing her stomach - well. It’s playful, it always is, but sometimes when he does this — when he’s got yellow paint splashed all over, sometimes she wants to know what would happen if she asked him to splash it all over her, too. 

She looks at him and how he’s looking at her and everything all at once feels too goddamn Big.

Lardo slaps his hand away a moment too late, saying, “You get Jack to translate. I don’t have anyone to translate.” She abruptly sits up and hugs one of his pillows. Artificially creating distance.

Shitty looks at her like he knows what she’s doing. “I’d translate sometime,” he says, the way he does when he’s trying to be nonchalant. “If you wanted.”

This is something bigger than what they’re saying. Lardo feels it floating just out of reach, like a mis-aimed pass she could get if she picks up the pace just a little bit. She almost does.

Her phone chirps from where it’s sitting on his nightstand.  _ duan you still need a lift to pracky? _

_ I can walk, _ she sends, glancing at Shitty. He’s studying his painting now, tracing fingers over the brushwork. Artificial distance.  _ gotta clear my head. _

“I have to go,” she says softly. “Practice in an hour.”

It feels like a misfire the second she says it. Shitty’s face shutters just so slightly, brows contracting in a mild frown. Not upset, though. Just a little resigned.

“Kick some ass, okay?” he says, rolling off the bed to pick up her backpack.

Lardo takes it carefully so their fingers don’t touch. “Always,” she says. She slings her backpack on with something like a smirk. It’s probably a misfire too, judging from his expression, but she needs some air. She closes the door gently behind her.

____________

She used to think her high school art friends were rowdy until she met her college art friends. Lardo swirls her wine glass awkwardly, watching Adam and Justin loudly debate whether or not certain historical sculptors were secretly banging each other while they drink from a shared bottle of rosé. Jack and Bitty giggle over something on Bitty’s phone in the corner, and Derek and Will and Chowder have draped themselves artfully over a single loveseat, drunkenly analyzing Caitlin’s use of a period in her last text message. It’s loud and chill at the same time. There’s some music playing faintly in the background that sounds like Parks and Rec overlaid with a trap mix.

This is her favorite thing to do at their soirées. It’s such a different kind of ridiculous from the hockey team that it’s nice to just observe sometimes.

Especially— 

Shitty has paint all over his clothes and in his mustache and under his jaw in the exact spot she sometimes thinks about kissing. He skips up to Jack now, slinging an arm over his shoulder, and it hits her how lively he is. Fluid. He walks the way he paints.

Lardo has some more wine. At some point she sits down unsteadily in an armchair that’s out to sea, must be, because it’s pitching back and forth. It takes her too long to realize it’s a recliner. She huffs a laugh and sets down her glass. Probably enough wine for tonight. 

“You good, Duan?” Adam asks then, flopping to the carpet and leaning back against her legs. Lardo plays with his hair lazily. 

“Lil schwasty,” she says. “You?”

He leans his head back against her hand. She scratches his scalp. “Lot schwasty. Glad you came out,” he says suddenly. “Been a minute.”

She sobers up almost immediately. “Season’s starting,” she tries. It sounds like too little an excuse. Her feelings are so obvious she’s surprised none of them have brought it up. 

Adam says, “Hmm,” and for a wild moment she thinks he’s going to be the first to say something about how she always hones into where Shitty is like they’re on the same offensive line. Always has him in the corner of her eye, ready to make a play if there’s an opening. 

There have been openings, though. 

She squeezes her eyes shut for a second.

Adam just says, slurring, “Sounds busy,” and Lardo sighs. 

“Yeah.”

Adam reaches clumsily to pat her hand until she keeps playing with his hair. She does. 

Shitty joins them a little later, dogpiling onto the armchair and making it pitch so much it nearly tips over. Lardo grabs his arm to keep from falling. And she knows he’s in shape — he’s come to some of her off ice practices at the gym, has spotted her bench presses and everything — but it’s very much one thing to be aware of his muscles and very much another thing to have them under her hands. She’s always been better with things she can hold in her hands. He catches her with an arm around her waist. 

“Sorry,” she says. It comes out almost as a whisper. 

Shitty makes a face. “What for?”

Before she can think she says, “Leaving the other day,” and he ducks his head. On instinct, she threads her fingers through his hair. All her words blank out of her mind. 

“You had practice,” he says lightly. “Nothing to apologize for.”

“Yeah, but still—”

He presses a finger to her lips. She stops abruptly. “You can keep apologizing, if you want,” he says. “There’s no reason to, is what I’m trying to say. You’re good.”

“Okay,” Lardo whispers. 

“You’re here now,” Shitty says, smiling slightly. He drops his hand. She imagines a straight line of yellow down her mouth, almost asks whether it’s there. Thinks maybe she’d like to see that someday. 

They’re quiet a minute while they readjust in the armchair. Shitty finagles it so he’s lying across it sideways, his knees hooked over the arm, and Lardo curls up against his side. From here she can feel his heartbeat against her cheek. It feels peaceful between them. Quiet, even while Justin puts on the Little Einsteins remix and Bitty shouts at him about Beyoncé. Lardo scoots even closer, her arm across Shitty’s chest, and he tangles their legs together before they fall asleep.

____________

_ hey I got y’all some p dece seats tonight,  _ she types in the locker room, biting her lip.  _ talk to Ford at admissions, she’s got ya. _

She closes out of her messages, feeling weirdly nervous and fluttery. They always come to her home games. Adam and Justin have been trying to outdo each other with their posters, to the extent that there’s a Samwell Twitter account dedicated to the hashtag #WhyEveryoneAtSamwellHatesArtMajors. 

It’s a different kind of nerves. She taps on Shitty’s contact picture, studying his face.

Someone taps her skates with their stick. “You good, Duan?” Jess asks. She glances at Lardo’s phone. “That your boy again?”

“Lards doesn’t have boys, remember?” Izzy chimes in as she tapes her stick.

“Yeah, he’s just one of her arts friends.” Jess looks amused, but there’s a line of tension running through her body. It’s a familiar, rare combo of pregame stress and worry for her teammates. She wears that tension all the time. 

Lardo sets her phone down so she can flip them both off at the same time. They laugh, rubbing her head affectionately.

Jess says, “You know we love you,” and Lardo makes a face at her. “Most of the time.” 

Her phone chirps and she scrambles for it without thinking, and this time Jess laughs for real. “Doesn’t have a boy, sure.”

“He’s just a friend,” she says absently, reading Shitty’s response. 

_ “y’all” she says hello georgia _

_ on our way _

_ kick some ass okay? score a goal for me :) _

Lardo smiles. Plugs in her headphones and opens her pregame playlist. 

She’s got a game to win.

____________

“How do you do that,” Shitty asks one morning through a yawn. 

She stops short next to the boards, sending up a spray of snow. He blinks. “Do what?”

“The—” Shitty yawns again, waving his hand in the air vaguely. “—skating. The thing where you cross your feet for turns and things.”

“Crossovers?” Lardo does a few, making a lazy circle. “Just practice.”

“You’re amazing,” he says, and they make eye contact.

When they first met he looked at her like she’s a painting, like something he wants to look at so closely until he can understand it and hold it in his hands. Too beautiful to be real. It’s been awhile since that, though, and right now he’s looking at her like she’s someone who just did fifteen crossovers in a row and he doesn’t get how. Almost like he’s okay not knowing how.

Lardo says, “I can translate.” Her voice shakes on the word  _ translate. _ Saying it feels the same way as seeing the yellow paint in his hair.

“Yeah?” 

She does a few lemons backwards instinctively and then comes back, deliberate, and it’s worth it for the way his eyes follow her skates. 

“Yeah,” she says. “If you want. I wanna be someone who can do that, if you want me to.”

She holds her breath, pretending to examine one of her laces. This feels like trying to explain or understand his art, something bigger than it should be but still easy to get a grasp on. Simple but massive, earth-rattling the way the bench erupts after an overtime goal in the Frozen Four. It almost, she thinks, feels inevitable. 

“Lards, you fuckin beaut,” Shitty says slowly, searching her face. “I’ll grab skates.”

The sun rises gently as she shows him how to find his balance on the ice, because Shitty’s really good at art but apparently completely awful at anything involving winter sports.

“I can ski,” he says indignantly. 

He’s holding her arm so tight part of her thinks she’s going to lose feeling in her hand. It’s next to nothing compared to the emotion bubbling in her throat, her stomach. “Show me a snowplow stop then.”

“Low blow. It’s different in skates than on skis, Miss Duan,” Shitty says, and light bursts through the windows at the far end of the rink. He is —  _ dazzling, _ she thinks helplessly, absolutely beautiful blinking at the sun on her rink this early in the morning. For her. 

“Shitty,” Lardo says. It comes out maybe a little needy, desperate, but she doesn’t care. She needs to say his name. 

He turns and he’s standing next to her but he’s too far away, and maybe he reads that in her face because something in his eyes softens in a way that makes her weak in the knees. She’s been skating since she was three years old but goddamn if that look doesn’t make her feel like she’s never set foot on ice in her life. 

“Lardo,” he says. 

He says her name like he wants to kiss her. So she skates them back to the bench, hops up on the boards, and wraps her legs around his waist. Eases him closer, slow enough that he doesn’t fall. Frames his face with her hands, closes her eyes, and kisses him. 

____________

It’s like staring at a fresh sheet of ice, or the way it feels when she finds the perfect song for her pregame mix, or doing crossovers during warmups. Familiar. Like it’s something she’s done before and will do again. 

She breaks away to smooth her thumb over his bottom lip just because she can and kisses him again, slow and sweetly, and Shitty settles his hands on her waist. It makes her feel anchored somehow. Like she’s growing into the rink with him next to her, or like how she felt at their wine soirée with them both squeezed into the armchair. Like yellow paint in his hair.

“Hey,” he whispers against her lips. “Lards. Early skate.”

Lardo opens her eyes and whispers, “But I just got my hands on you.” It’s not exactly how she meant to say it, but it’ll work. She can translate later, if she needs to.

There’s a slow and easy smile working its way across Shitty’s face. “You can keep your hands on me,” he says. 

“Good,” she says, easing her hand into his back pocket as they step off the rink. He throws his arm over her shoulders, laughing. “I’m planning on it.”

________________________

**Author's Note:**

> Oh man y'all I just love Shitty and Lardo so much  
this may be polished up later, but for now it feels like it wants to be posted :)
> 
> thanks for reading! lemme know what you think below or [come say hi on tumblr!](https://ivecarvedawoodenheart.tumblr.com/)


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